Parkland girls, Emmaus boys win EPC soccer championships

Parkland girls, Emmaus boys win EPC soccer titles

Parkland goalkeeper Becky Webster has spent a substantial part of her career trying to determine the whereabouts of ubiquitous Whitehall star Kourtney Cunningham, one of the fastest and most prolific goal scorers in the area.

Webster unexpectedly found her Thursday night as Parkland and Whitehall were preparing for penalty kicks in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference girls soccer championship game at J. Birney Crum Stadium.

While stretching, Webster looked up and there was Cunningham, preparing to be the Zephyrs' goalkeeper in penalty kicks, instead of regular Jude Luckenbill.

Cunningham has scored 37 goals this season and 118 in her career, but allowed two PKs, while Webster allowed none. Parkland won the shootout 4-2 after a 2-2 draw to claim its third league championship in Al Haddad's nine seasons as head coach.

The Emmaus boys won their 16th overall league title in the second half of the doubleheader, but it wasn't easy. Cory Ross scored the game-winner with 12 minutes left, but goalkeeper made it stand up with an outstanding save a minute later in a 2-1 win over Liberty.

Webster was more than surprised to see Cunningham.

"When I saw her, I said, 'Kourtney, you're in goal?' She said, 'Yeah.' I said, 'What?' She did a great job, for a forward playing goalkeeper," Webster said.

The Trojans, who will be the top seed in the upcoming District 11 Class 3A playoffs, now have eight league championships in four different leagues — one in the East Penn, four in the Mountain Valley, two in the LVC and the inaugural EPC 18 title.

"We were on the wrong end of a league championship last year on penalty kicks, and now we're on the right end of it," Parkland coach Al Haddad said. "Two games in a row on PKs (including a win over Easton in the semis) is not what I wanted."

Whitehall coach Dave Weitzman said that he chose to put Cunningham in goal in PKs because of her speed.

"We really felt that Kourtney is very athletic," he said. "We worked with her and she was saving just about everything. She's just a tremendous athlete who really competes. We felt it was our best opportunity to win in PKs."

Parkland twice lost leads. Rachel Laird scored in the 13th minute, but Cunningham assisted on a Maddi Walker goal to make it 1-1 at the half.

Laird scored again in the second half, but Cunningham tied it late in the second half to make it 2-2. After two 15-minute overtimes, Webster and Cunningham lined up as keepers for the shootout.

"We've improved tremendously, and so have other teams," said Laird, a sophomore. "Because we have a younger squad, we are learning how to play with each other. Overall, our team has improved tenfold."

In the boys game, Emmaus led 1-0 at the half on a Parker Landis PK, but Liberty tied it on a Talhah Netherlin goal early in the second half.

Ross gave the Hornets the lead with 12 minutes left, but Lang's play secured the win,

"We knew (Liberty) was coming on strong late," Emmaus coach John Cari said. "They played outstanding in that second half. Once they found that goal, everything turned around for them. ... Ethan really got up, extended, and pushed it over the goal. Outstanding save."

Liberty coach Jason Horvath said he was not pleasantly surprised that his team advanced to the final. He expected not only to be there, but to win it.

"That was never a question," he said. "The way the schedule worked out, with injuries and with some unfortunate things that happened in games, we started 2-4, But we stormed back won eight of 10 games, We had a week where we played five games in six days. We never doubted ourselves. We know what we are capable of doing. They saw what we're capable of doing in the second half."